Society/Culture Ben Shapiro

[ShanDog]

Marxism informs the third & most political component of the Nietzsche/Freud/Marx triumvirate, in leading the way in their criticisms of modern society through revolutionary idealistic thinking.

And this is the critique Peterson has on postmodern philosophy which I think is validated. The reason I'm not totally sold on his theories on this is that I wonder if he ascribes the influence of Marxist and postmodernist thought to too much, and conflates them rather than sees them in parallel. It's a simplistic summary and I don't think I have it completely right either, but this is the nagging feeling in the back of my head whenever JP talks about this issue.

 

[Frank Bunn]

And this is the critique Peterson has on postmodern philosophy which I think is validated. The reason I'm not totally sold on his theories on this is that I wonder if he ascribes the influence of Marxist and postmodernist thought to too much, and conflates them rather than sees them in parallel. It's a simplistic summary and I don't think I have it completely right either, but this is the nagging feeling in the back of my head whenever JP talks about this issue.

There were a number of influences on postmodernist thinking. Nietzsche was possibly the most influential. His view that 'there are no facts, just interpretations' led to the French obscurantist nonsense. The hippies, looking for something after the radical left movements in the late 1960s failed to deliver the revolutionary overthrow of capitalism, lapped it up. Those hippies went on to take prominent positions in academia, public service and government.

Marxists still talk about 'class struggle'. They have largely been discredited to the point of irrelevance. Neo-Marxists hold the view that all problems in human life stem from an unjust society and that corrections to that social mechanism will eventually bring utopia. Class struggle was supplanted by a view that the world can be divided into oppressors and the oppressed. Everything becomes viewed in the light of fighting oppression or reducing power differentials, whether it is freedom of speech, scientific truth or education goals. But they rarely explain their philosophy, much less acknowledge the roots of it.

Petersen holds a fairly conventional position on capitalism.

 

[ShanDog]

There were a number of influences on postmodernist thinking. Nietzsche was possibly the most influential. His view that 'there are no facts, just interpretations' led to the French obscurantist nonsense. The hippies, looking for something after the radical left movements in the late 1960s failed to deliver the revolutionary overthrow of capitalism, lapped it up. Those hippies went on to take prominent positions in academia, public service and government.

Marxists still talk about 'class struggle'. They have largely been discredited to the point of irrelevance. Neo-Marxists hold the view that all problems in human life stem from an unjust society and that corrections to that social mechanism will eventually bring utopia. Class struggle was supplanted by a view that the world can be divided into oppressors and the oppressed. Everything becomes viewed in the light of fighting oppression or reducing power differentials, whether it is freedom of speech, scientific truth or education goals. But they rarely explain their philosophy, much less acknowledge the roots of it.

Petersen holds a fairly conventional position on capitalism.

Yes I am aware of the history. There still remains the issues of postmodernism's rejection of grand narratives and subjectivity when compared to the structural nature of Marxist thought - as Peterson said himself in one of the lectures specifically on the topic, they are strange bedfellows and in the first instance it seems silly to conflate the two. I am not yet sold on the way he ascribes many modern cultural and political issues as a result of 'neo-Marxist Postmodernism' because of it. It's too reductive and, to a degree, the kind of categorisation or identity politicking he despises (not that it ipso facto makes it wrong). Like I said, there's something to it (the Marxist and Postmodernist links to far-left ideology) but I don't think he has it nailed down yet, nor have I seen anyone else talking about the same issue do so.

 

[Scallop Industry Thug]

I think we've discussed this before, but within the nonsensical world of intra-left politics, there are pretty clear lines drawn between post-modernists and Marxists. They have their own meme war. Unlike the alt right memes, they are quite clever aswell.

 

[ShanDog]

I think we've discussed this before, but within the nonsensical world of intra-left politics, there are pretty clear lines drawn between post-modernists and Marxists. They have their own meme war. Unlike the alt right memes, they are quite clever aswell.

Yeah I've no doubt there are those who ascribe to one and are hostile towards the other. There remains something to be said about the effects of both ideologies/philosphies being similar though (up to a certain point in time where they would diverge). Enemy of my enemy and all that.

 

[Scallop Industry Thug]

The other thing is that most of who are called neo-Marxists are actually liberals. The alt right are trying to establish the terms of a debate they want to ignite, but * me they are sloppy.

 

[Procrastinator35]

And this is the critique Peterson has on postmodern philosophy which I think is validated. The reason I'm not totally sold on his theories on this is that I wonder if he ascribes the influence of Marxist and postmodernist thought to too much, and conflates them rather than sees them in parallel. It's a simplistic summary and I don't think I have it completely right either, but this is the nagging feeling in the back of my head whenever JP talks about this issue.

I'll try to explain it as best I can in Layman's terms.

If we take the 1950's stereotype as our exemplar for all that our traditional values stand-for, then post-modernism can be understood as a startling critique for all that lies beneath the fabricated nirvana of that vision.

For Nietzsche, it's about values & morality as such....The suburban dream as a façade of role-playing & role-acting into all that life is meant to be in terms of relatedness, fullness & completeness.....Of an entire generation leading an unfulfilled & unquestioned life on the back of the old values & law tables passed down to us from Christianity & the Roman Forum onwards.....Particularly the structured aspects of reality & life as they conform to rigor on a day to day basis.....Take the 9-5 work-day routine for example, or the drudgery of a menial meaningless job you hate....Or even living in a structured suburban neighbourhood, street & house of another man's making.

The central corpus of Nietzsche's work is the Revaluation of all Values!....Of a questioning of all accepted values & finding one's own path outside of those usual social mores handed down to us from one generation after another....Of a turning of tradition upon it's head.

For Freud it's about the underlying sexual repression, the couped-up frustrations of acting within a code of social mores that go against our biological natures & economy of energy.....That rather than fuelling us & helping us to grow as individuals & a society, the social mores of the 1950's & the nuclear family ideal it came to embody, are rather, a hot bed for neuroses, sexual repression, hysteria & schizophrenia.....That a 50's lifestyle is an assault upon our psychological well-being itself.

Marxism is about social justice & a material egalitarianism, whereby the workers must band together to empower themselves so as to get their just desserts of the share of the spoils they helped to create in the first place, as the foundational, first principle point, of all value added labor to a product.

Unlike Sorteds' post, I completely disagree that all post-Marxist thought has been discredited & find Marx's economical class struggle & divide notion to be a rather compelling one....Particularly since the advent of the industrial revolution & our move away from a principally agrarian culture to an urban one.

No matter how hard our Capitalist ideologues might try to discredit Marx, Marxism & Socialism.....I doubt they are going away anywhere soon.....In fact, in the U.S, union power is needed now more than ever, as a means to redress the shocking economic imbalance currently at play.....The establishment & their favourite toy & medium, the MSM, is at pains to try & convince us all that Marxism & Socialism is bunkum.....And of course, we all know why they are so invested in trying to convince us all of such a notion....As it represents the one fundamental, moral & ethical threat to their economic power & greed.

See the stitch-up job they all did on Bernie Sanders at the last election, as proof on that score.

 

[ShanDog]

I'll try to explain it as best I can in Layman's terms.

If we take the 1950's stereotype as our exemplar for all that our traditional values stand-for, then post-modernism can be understood as a startling critique for all that lies beneath the fabricated nirvana of that vision.

For Nietzsche, it's about values & morality as such....The suburban dream as a façade of role-playing & role-acting into all that life is meant to be in terms of relatedness, fullness & completeness.....Of an entire generation leading an unfulfilled & unquestioned life on the back of the old values & law tables passed down to us from Christianity & the Roman Forum onwards.....Particularly the structured aspects of reality & life as they conform to rigor on a day to day basis.....Take the 9-5 work-day routine for example, or the drudgery of a menial meaningless job you hate....Or even living in a structured suburban neighbourhood, street & house of another man's making.

The central corpus of Nietzsche's work is the Revaluation of all Values!....Of a questioning of all accepted values & finding one's own path outside of those usual social mores handed down to us from one generation after another....Of a turning of tradition upon it's head.

For Freud it's about the underlying sexual repression, the couped-up frustrations of acting within a code of social mores that go against our biological natures & economy of energy.....That rather than fuelling us & helping us to grow as individuals & a society, the social mores of the 1950's & the nuclear family ideal it came to embody, are rather, a hot bed for neuroses, sexual repression, hysteria & schizophrenia.....That a 50's lifestyle is an assault upon our psychological well-being itself.

Marxism is about social justice & a material egalitarianism, whereby the workers must band together to empower themselves so as to get their just desserts of the share of the spoils they helped to create in the first place, as the foundational, first principle point, of all value added labor to a product.

Unlike Sorteds' post, I completely disagree that all post-Marxist thought has been discredited & find Marx's economical class struggle & divide notion to be a rather compelling one....Particularly since the advent of the industrial revolution & our move away from a principally agrarian culture to an urban one.

No matter how hard our Capitalist ideologues might try to discredit Marx, Marxism & Socialism.....I doubt they are going away anywhere soon.....In fact, in the U.S, union power is needed now more than ever, as a means to redress the shocking economic imbalance currently at play.....The establishment & their favourite toy & medium, the MSM, is at pains to try & convince us all that Marxism & Socialism is bunkum.....And of course, we all know why they are so invested in trying to convince us all of such a notion....As it represents the one fundamental, moral & ethical threat to their economic power & greed.

See the stitch-up job they all did on Bernie Sanders at the last election, as proof on that score.

Thanks for the effort here but I'm talking about Peterson's specific claims that 'neo-Marxist postmodernist' (a phrase he repeats often) are deliberately and malevolently altering the social narrative to effectively bring down capitalism and destroy western culture through the infiltration of the education system and lobby groups to affect public policy - death by a thousand cuts style. You're talking about the resistance to that. My issue is that I don't think Peterson quite has the lay of the land right with his theories despite some truth being in them. It's quite a claim he makes and I don't quite see enough solid evidence to agree 100%

 

[Scallop Industry Thug]

The alt right and some on mainstream right has fallen into the habit of using neo-Marxist/post modernist/cultural Marxist interchangebly.

He's probably smart enough to know that using cultural marxist throws his lot in with neo nazis, which he'd like to avoid. But he uses the other one, and it seems to be used as a catch all to describe anyone what advocates for social change or progress. For an academic, it's really sloppy.

 

[Procrastinator35]

Thanks for the effort here but I'm talking about Peterson's specific claims that 'neo-Marxist postmodernist' (a phrase he repeats often) are deliberately and malevolently altering the social narrative to effectively bring down capitalism and destroy western culture through the infiltration of the education system and lobby groups to affect public policy - death by a thousand cuts style. You're talking about the resistance to that. My issue is that I don't think Peterson quite has the lay of the land right with his theories despite some truth being in them. It's quite a claim he makes and I don't quite see enough solid evidence to agree 100%

That could certainly have said to be true in the late 60's & early 70's....Especially with the Anti-Vietnam war protest movement.....But having witnessed first-hand the assault on education & the humanities in particular these past 3 decades, on behalf of the corporate elites. The precise & exact opposite is now true......Seldom if ever will you see a left-leaning intellectual getting any air-time whatsoever on the MSM....It's pretty well all about dumbing-down the population holus-bolus, as a means to monopolise the Captains of social-consciousness industry.....The attempt to usurp all political discussion, debate & dialogue via the claim to an A-political agenda....Which we all know to be anything but the case.....Classic Orwellian double-speak.

 

[ShanDog]

That could certainly have said to be true in the late 60's & early 70's....Especially with the Anti-Vietnam war protest movement.....But having witnessed first-hand the assault on education & the humanities in particular these past 3 decades, on behalf of the corporate elites. The precise & exact opposite is now true......Seldom if ever will you see a left-leaning intellectual getting any air-time whatsoever on the MSM....It's pretty well all about dumbing-down the population holus-bolus, as a means to monopolise the Captains of social-consciousness industry.....The attempt to usurp all political discussion, debate & dialogue via the claim to an A-political agenda....Which we all know to be anything but the case.....Classic Orwellian double-speak.

That's his line of argument - once the cold war ended and the iron curtain came down, the Marxist school of thought was no longer marketable, so they effectively reformed into the church of postmodernism (which Peterson claims is just a re-branded form of Marxism now).

 

[Scallop Industry Thug]

That's his line of argument - once the cold war ended and the iron curtain came down, the Marxist school of thought was no longer marketable, so they effectively reformed into the church of postmodernism (which Peterson claims is just a re-branded form of Marxism now).

Was this reformation minuted?

 

[ShanDog]

Was this reformation minuted?

Of course not - those minutes would only represent the subjective interpretation of the power-wielding minute-taker who assessed the content of the meeting with their administrative gaze and bourgeois rationalisation!

 

[Frank Bunn]

The alt right and some on mainstream right has fallen into the habit of using neo-Marxist/post modernist/cultural Marxist interchangebly.

He's probably smart enough to know that using cultural marxist throws his lot in with neo nazis, which he'd like to avoid. But he uses the other one, and it seems to be used as a catch all to describe anyone what advocates for social change or progress. For an academic, it's really sloppy.

The terms neo-Marxist and cultural Marxist are fairly subjective. They are both terms that seek to ascribe the philosophical roots of post-modernism. For example, Jacques Derrida

deconstruction never had meaning or interest, at least in my eyes, than as a radicalization, that is to say, also within the tradition of a certain Marxism, in a certain spirit of Marxism.​

Or Foucault

I label political everything that has to do with class struggle, and social everything that derives from and is a consequence of the class struggle, expressed in human relationships and in institutions​

Given his outright challenges to the postmodern status quo I doubt that Peterson cares whether his terminology brands him.

The actuality of post-modernism is better defined and more important than labels. It attacks the naturalist views of reason, science, individualism, and liberalism. It's not progressive, it's fundamentally regressive.

 

[Scallop Industry Thug]

It's also confined to the most unfunded and obscure part of universities.

The issue is with ascribing huge societal changes to cultural Marxism or post-modernism. It's just conspiratorial stupidity.

 

[Frank Bunn]

It's also confined to the most unfunded and obscure part of universities.

The issue is with ascribing huge societal changes to cultural Marxism or post-modernism. It's just conspiratorial stupidity.

Yeah nah. Like Roz Ward who was instrumental in implementing 'Safe Schools' into Victoria. I don't give a s**t whether she describes herself as Marxist, Neo-Marxist or Post-Modernist. She had a big influence on public policy from her position at La Trobe University. If she believes that stuff then stand for public office rather than sneak it in via some wank academic position.

 

[Scallop Industry Thug]

Yeah nah. Like Roz Ward who was instrumental in implementing 'Safe Schools' into Victoria. I don't give a s**t whether she describes herself as Marxist, Neo-Marxist or Post-Modernist. She had a big influence on public policy from her position at La Trobe University. If she believes that stuff then stand for public office rather than sneak it in via some wank academic position.

So, you're criticising her for performing her academic role from her academic position?

And whether or not she is/was a marxist; that has nothing to do with the safe schools program.

 

[Bradesmaen]

Yeah nah. Like Roz Ward who was instrumental in implementing 'Safe Schools' into Victoria. I don't give a s**t whether she describes herself as Marxist, Neo-Marxist or Post-Modernist. She had a big influence on public policy from her position at La Trobe University. If she believes that stuff then stand for public office rather than sneak it in via some wank academic position.

You mean like the IPA?

 

[Frank Bunn]

So, you're criticising her for performing her academic role from her academic position?

And whether or not she is/was a marxist; that has nothing to do with the safe schools program.

I'm criticising her political role from her academic position. And many more like her.

Of course her being a Marxist affected the Safe Schools program. It was just part of her solution to capitalist sexual oppression. She told the Melbourne 2015 Marxism Conference "Marxism offers both the hope and the strategy needed to create a world where human sexuality, gender and how we relate to our bodies can blossom in extraordinarily new and amazing ways that we can only try to imagine today, because Marxism has a theory of social change”.

If she has these radical views then she should have the balls to stand for public office. Elected governments should not implement these policies without open public discussion.

 

[Bradesmaen]

I'm criticising her political role from her academic position. And many more like her.

Of course her being a Marxist affected the Safe Schools program. It was just part of her solution to capitalist sexual oppression. She told the Melbourne 2015 Marxism Conference "Marxism offers both the hope and the strategy needed to create a world where human sexuality, gender and how we relate to our bodies can blossom in extraordinarily new and amazing ways that we can only try to imagine today, because Marxism has a theory of social change”.

If she has these radical views then she should have the balls to stand for public office. Elected governments should not implement these policies without open public discussion.

So, like the IPA then and every other policy think tank or person working as an academic. What about you? You have views and share them on this forum, are you not doing something similar? Why don't you stand for public office? Are people not allowed to share their views anymore unless they stand for public office?

 

[TigerTime_89]

I like Ben, makes more sense then some other people right of centre.

 

[Scallop Industry Thug]

I'm criticising her political role from her academic position. And many more like her.

Of course her being a Marxist affected the Safe Schools program. It was just part of her solution to capitalist sexual oppression. She told the Melbourne 2015 Marxism Conference "Marxism offers both the hope and the strategy needed to create a world where human sexuality, gender and how we relate to our bodies can blossom in extraordinarily new and amazing ways that we can only try to imagine today, because Marxism has a theory of social change”.

If she has these radical views then she should have the balls to stand for public office. Elected governments should not implement these policies without open public discussion.

You can't point to anything Marxist about the safe schools program. Nothing.

Your argument about her needing to stand for public office is weird. She's an academic. She provided an educational resource to be instituted at government schools.

 

[Procrastinator35]

That's his line of argument - once the cold war ended and the iron curtain came down, the Marxist school of thought was no longer marketable, so they effectively reformed into the church of postmodernism (which Peterson claims is just a re-branded form of Marxism now).

I tend to see Marxism & Socialism themselves as mainstream....Particularly given their influence upon politics & the Left for over a century now....The union movement, industrial relations, the ombudsman, social reforms & the Social security state can all said to be aligned with it's philosophical position.

The attempt to marginalize it as no longer mainstream or relevant is an entirely elitist game-plan, which doesn't have much truck in reality for mine, other than to push their own agendas of an assault on an ideology, that opposes their own economic agendas & desires.....The whole point of the Social Contract itself, has been lost in the establishments usurpation of the MSM & public voice itself.

The splintered groups of Post-Marxist thought I would agree, tend to harbor more post-modern elements within them, insofar as they incorporate identitarian politics, Nietzschean deconstructionist, or Freudian psycho-analytic elements.

One need only look at all the Feminist schools of thought to see the post-modern fracturing at play....Where each school pushes their own perspective & agenda as the crucial one in the battle for ownership of centrality in policy.....But that's just the point of post-moderninsm, where perspectivism rules, as all claims to a superior, or objective position are attacked as deluded or idealistic 'burgoise notions'......Hence the focus upon lunatic fringes & elements to discredit post-modernist & post-structuralist claims; Which tend to be rooted in localised & embodied realities.....So, for example, if one was raped as a teenager, then 'the concept & issue of rape itself, becomes a centralised 'idea fixe' to that individual, who will project that reality onto society in arguing that the incidence of 'Rape' & 'Rape culture' defines the contemporary patriarchal state & mind-set....And one can see how for that particular individual, that has become both her reality & the case psychologically. As the trauma of that phenomena can have devastating all round effects upon the rest of one's life.

 

[ShanDog]

So, like the IPA then and every other policy think tank or person working as an academic. What about you? You have views and share them on this forum, are you not doing something similar? Why don't you stand for public office? Are people not allowed to share their views anymore unless they stand for public office?

Remind me what the IPA is? I keep thinking beer.

 

[Scotland]

I like Ben, makes more sense then some other people right of centre.

Seems like an angry little man.

According to his Wiki page:

Shapiro holds that African-Americans were historically victims of injustice in the United States, but that they are not victims of widespread systemic injustice today.[19] As of November 2017, he supported lowering taxes on the very wealthy.[19] He is in favor of privatizing social security, criminalizing abortion, and repealing the Affordable Care Act.[19] On the February 9, 2018 edition of Fox News' Fox & Friends, he advocated for the U.S. government not to cut the Military Budget, but instead to make cuts to Social Security, Medicare, and Medicaid.[40]

Sounds like a gimp.